We March to the Beat of Our Own Drums
by CountTheCrows
Summary: Bay took the fall for Daphne, but she can't let Emmett do the same as well. He has to go to LA, and they'll either survive or they won't. One-shot. Some small season 4 spoilers.


"_It's the right decision; I know it," _she tells him and he believes her. Sort of. He wants to believe her because she's Bay and he loves her, but how can being apart ever be the right decision?

"_How can being miles apart be right for us?"_ He asks. He needs her to tell him, to explain it, because he doesn't understand anything right now. He doesn't understand what happened. He's not sure he ever will.

"_I need you to fulfill your dreams, Emmett. You can't stay for me. If you do, you'll end up hating me, possibly more than you do already."_

He wants to scream. He doesn't hate her. He could never hate her. And he doesn't want to hate her. Maybe it would be easier if he did, if he could even. But it would be a catch-22. If he woke up hating her, the memories of him loving her would still be there. So hating her would never be a real option. Their love would linger and haunt him. The only way to truly move on from her is if someone wiped his mind.

And that?

That is something he can't even begin to fathom.

He doesn't hate her. He hates Daphne. He hates the universe. He hates nothing…about Bay.

"_I don't hate you, Bay. It's just…"_

"_It's just what, Emmett?"_

"_I'll miss you."_

It's so simple. Does there need to be more? He'll miss her smile; he'll miss her touch; he'll miss how she can sell him the world in one look. And there's the rub. Bay really could sell him the world in one look, make all the bad stuff go away or at least be dormant for the precious time he's allowed to spend in her presence.

So, yeah, he'll miss all of that.

"_I'll miss you, too."_

And he doesn't doubt for a second that she will.

He feels shaky and numb at the same time. There's this press in him to stall, to stay with her as long as he possibly can, but he can't. They both know it. Time is not on their side. Time, he thinks, what a funny concept. Do we ever have enough of it? How is it that we can feel choked by it during certain moments of our lives and in the next moment, be yearning for more of it? Grasping for the tiniest bits to do the most basic parts of life; loving, breathing, _living_.

She reaches up and wraps her arms around his neck while he wraps his around her waist. It's kind of cute that she has to stand up on her tippy toes to do it. He feels like her protector and then that realization hits him like a ton of bricks. He didn't protect her from this. But could he? It's hard for him to process, yet he gets it. Bay Kennish, wild and untamed, the person she needs the most protection from is herself. She has such a good heart and is so giving; however, situations like this one right here are why she needs a protector. There are people in the world who will take advantage.

Bay will never stop giving and others may not stop taking.

He doesn't want to change the basic fundamentals of who she is. That very essence is what he fell in love with. But he's afraid of how far away from him it'll take her.

She doesn't want to be taken away from him either, so, there's that. There's hope. They can make this work. They will make this work.

There's wetness on his cheek and he's not entirely sure if it's from him, from her, or both.

He gently pulls himself out of their embrace.

"_But how is this going to work? Long distance relationships don't have the best odds."_ He needs her to reassure him.

She laughs, just a little, and he doesn't get it.

"_Emmett, when have the odds ever been in our favor?"_

And then he does. She's right.

The switch threw everything off course. If Bay had been Daphne, he would have had her in his life much earlier than he did. They would have shared the same culture, spoken the same language. At least they managed to find each other despite that obstacle. And he understands her. He has always understood her, even when it seemed like he didn't.

"_I don't know if I ever told you, but when we first started dating, I looked it up. You know, our odds. The statistics said Deaf/hearing relationships are 85% more likely to fail. And I thought if we would be the 85% or the 15%. Now I know for sure we're the 15. We'll make it work because it's what we do. We're Bay and Emmett and we make our own rules._"

That they do.

He cups her chin and kisses her, hugs her one last time, and gets on his bike and drives home.

Three months later he's in LA, nearly done with his first semester. They Facetime, Skype, text, e-mail. She sends him comic strips of hammer girl and motorcycle boy taking the world by storm. His roommate doesn't get it, but Emmett doesn't care. He doesn't have to. Nobody else has to get it, to get them.

They're Bay and Emmett and they've never done what was expected.

They make up their own rules.


End file.
